Many types of internal combustion engines are known in the art. It is well known that increasing the compression ratio of an internal combustion engine will result in increased thermodynamic efficiency. With many prior art engines, the compression ratio of the engine is limited by the expansion ratio of the cylinders of the engine. In other prior art engines, the compression ratio of the engine is limited to a relatively low value because auto-ignition of the fuel air mixture will occur too early in the cycle as compressed air reaches a temperature above the auto-ignition temperature of the fuel.